Chapter 239: The Unmovable Wall [II]
The stream chat overlaying the left corner of his vision instantly went completely wild.
Thousands of comments began scrolling across his screen at light speed.
[@GamerGod99: HOLY SHIT IT’S BLESSED LAND?!]
[@SovereignWatcher: ISN’T THAT THE TERRITORY THAT’S AT NUMBER 1 IN THE NEWBIE RANKS AND STILL CLIMBING?!]
[@ShadowBlade_X: LORD SKY IS ABOUT TO GET ANOTHER EASY LORD WAR WIN!]
[@ValoriaFan: SHOW US THEIR LORDS! ARE THEY HIGH TIER OR NOOBS?!]
[@NoobMaster69: UNMOVABLE WALL UNDEFEATED BABY! LET’S GOOOOO!]
[@CorporateScout_4: Streaming live without me? Bold move, Sky.]
[@PVP_Legend: WAGE THE WAR! CHALLENGE THEM ON STREAM RIGHT NOW!]
[@RaidMaster_99: Free content day! Let’s see their army!]
[@DragonSlayer_01: Don’t crush them too fast Sky, give us a good fight!]
[@AnimeFanatic: Show us their heroes!]
[@GuildRecruiter_X: Monitoring this sector for potential talent.]
[@StreamEnjoyer: 10/10 scenery, dark trees look sick.]
[@TacticalNuke: Roll the treads over their gates!]
[@ProGamer_22: Unmovable Wall on top as always!]
HEAVE... RUMBLE... CLANG!
With a massive ground-shaking metallic groan, the colossal mobile fortress pulled to a complete halt at the edge of the wild clearing.
The massive iron treads dug deep, two-foot trenches into the dark mud, steam venting from the side exhaust pipes with a loud roaring hiss that echoed through the trees.
Stepping down the wide iron ramp at the rear of the rig was a heavy detachment of Sky’s standing army.
Gathering in the open clearing was a force of roughly two hundred troops... a formidable trained mix of heavily armored infantry, sharp-eyed archers, element-casters, and summoned Heroes.
Sky had accumulated this massive two-hundred-strong force over months of victorious Lord Wars.
Whenever he defeated a rival domain, instead of slaughtering their population or burning their homes, he often offered the strongest displaced soldiers and Heroes a choice to join his wandering mobile empire, building an elite, diverse military force.
A few of his frontline officers and Heroes grumbled as they stepped out onto the damp murky soil of the Umbral Basin, looking around at the dark, oppressive atmosphere with visible discomfort.
"Ugh, what an annoying, dreary place," a female fire-caster complained, fanning her flushed face with her sleeve. "It’s so humid, damp, and dark out here. Lord Sky, why are we stopping in the middle of a swamp forest?"
Sky laughed warmly, stepping down the iron ramp to join his troops on the mud floor.
"Relax, everyone," Sky chuckled through his alloy mask. "We’re just deploying a standard scout sweep to announce our presence politely. Don’t go burning down the local flora just yet."
He looked over his two-hundred-strong army, feeling a quiet sense of pride.
’Honestly...’ Sky reflected silently, watching his officers form up their lines, ’I wouldn’t mind taking several warriors from the Blessed Land territory if I win this war. Their domain has been making massive waves on the regional leaderboards lately... However, that is only if the Lord him or herself explicitly consents to terms after the match is over. I don’t force people into my ranks.’
He raised his right hand, giving a hand-signal to his scout commander.
"Deploy the forward reconnaissance team. Standard twenty-man spread. Let’s see if Blessed Land has anyone patrolling these outer trees."
"Understood, My Lord!" the scout commander bowed, turning to wave his hand. "Forward scouts, move out!"
However... before the twenty light scouts could even take ten steps into the wild clearing—
THUD! THUD! THUD!
A heavy pounding echoed through the thick purple canopy ahead!
The dark purple leaves rustled violently, and out of the dense forest emerged a single, breathtaking figure.
Riding atop an oversized majestic direwolf with glowing golden fur and a broad scarred frame was a single woman.
She wore sleek dark armor that hugged her slender, athletic body, and her black hair was streaked with striking strands of pure silver that fluttered wildly in the wind.
Prominently engraved on her chest plate, her shoulder guards, and the pommels of her twin daggers was a sharp glowing crest... it was the official crest of the Blessed Land.
As for who these people were, It was Tasmin, riding atop Luna.
Sky’s eyes narrowed behind his silver mask as he locked his gaze onto her.
’Since this is Blessed Land and that crest is there...’ Sky recognized instantly with his posture straightening. ’That is the official crest of Blessed Land and she’s one of their main officers.’
Even though she was riding completely alone against an army of two hundred, her presence was intense and utterly devoid of fear.
The Blessed Land territory had become immensely famous over the past few weeks due to their rapid rise on the global domain charts, and seeing one of their high-tier champions up close sent a visible ripple of intense curiosity through Sky’s entire army.
Even if this woman was just a messenger sent to deliver a response, as a champion from Blessed Land, she was popular too, and Sky wanted to test her out to gauge her baseline capabilities.
He glanced at his floating camera drones.
The stream chat was exploding with tens of thousands of messages a second as viewers talked about her.
[@SovereignWatcher: HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THAT DIRE WOLF MOUNT!]
[@GamerGod99: IS THAT A HERO?! LOOK AT THAT SILVER HAIR!]
[@PVP_Legend: SHE’S RIDING ALONE AGAINST AN ARMY?! SHE’S CRAZY!]
[@NoobMaster69: ATTACK HER! TEST HER STATS SKY!]
[@ValoriaFan: LORD SKY TEST HER! SEND THE SCOUTS!]
[@DarkKnight_00: She looks dangerous as hell... look at her eyes.]
[@StreamLover: BATTLE TIME! BATTLE TIME!]
[@GuildRecruiter_X: That wolf mount is insane quality.]
[@TacticalNuke: Is she going to fight all 200 of them?!]
[@ProGamer_22: Test her guard!]
Sky smirked beneath his alloy mask.
His audience wanted a show, and he was more than willing to deliver.
"Scouts! Subdue the intruder!" Sky ordered, gesturing forward with his hand. "Don’t kill her... just test her guard and hold her in place!"
"YES, MY LORD!"
The twenty light scouts immediately drew their curved steel sabers, releasing their mana as they charged forward across the open dirt clearing.
At the exact same second, standing right beside Sky’s war-rig, one of his primary silver-ranked Heroes moved.
BOOM!
It was a striking, silver-haired Demi-Human female with sharp wolf ears and lethal, three-inch steel claws mounted over her gauntlets.
She launched off the iron ramp like a pressurized steel spring, shooting straight through the air at amazing speeds, she bypassed the twenty scouts entirely with her steel claws extended as she aimed a blinding dive-attack straight at Tasmin’s throat.
"TAKE THIS, INTRUDER!" the silver-haired Demi-Human roared mid-air with her claws gleaming in the sunlight.
Tasmin didn’t flinch, she didn’t draw her twin daggers and she didn’t even order Luna to take a defensive step back.
’Heh...’
Instead, Tasmin simply sat atop the golden direwolf’s saddle with a cold unimpressed, and bored look in her dark eyes.
The second before the silver-haired Demi-Human’s lethal claws could slice into her skin—
ZIP!
Tasmin executed a combat dodge so ridiculously disrespectful that it left the entire two-hundred-man army and Lord Sky utterly speechless.
Without using her hands or shifting her feet in the stirrups, Tasmin simply leaned her upper body straight backward at a casual forty-five-degree angle on Luna’s saddle, allowing the Demi-Human’s lethal steel claws to pass through empty air millimeters above her nose.
As the silver-haired Demi-Human overshot her target from the unstoppable momentum of her mid-air dive, Tasmin’s dark eyes flashed with cold contempt.
THWACK!
While still leaning completely backward on her mount, Tasmin casually whipped her left leg straight upward in a lightning-fast brutal reverse heel-kick, connecting flush against the Demi-Human’s exposed jaw.
BANG!
A sickening bone-crunching crack echoed across the silent clearing.
The silver-haired Demi-Human didn’t even get a single chance to scream as the physical force of the kick shut her brain down instantly, sending her unconscious body flying sideways through the air like a discarded ragdoll before crashing face-first into the dark mud, where she lay completely motionless.
THUD!
The twenty charging scouts froze dead in their tracks with their boots skidding in the mud as their sabers trembled in their hands and their eyes going wide as saucers in utter horror.
Tasmin casually sat back upright in her saddle.
With a slow and terrifyingly calm motion, she reached down to her waist, drawing her right shortsword from its sheath with a ringing metallic sound.
SLIDE... CLANG!
Tasmin jumped smoothly off Luna’s back, landing lightly on her boots in the center of the mud clearing.
She raised the gleaming steel blade of her shortsword, holding it vertically before her face as her dark silver-streaked eyes swept over the entire two-hundred-man army, the floating stream drones, and Lord Sky himself.
Her voice echoed across the quiet clearing.
"If you all wish to attack me... then I’m here."
Tasmin shifted her weight with her pitch-black shadow mana beginning to writhe around her boots like living serpents as her lips curved into a cold-blooded smirk.
"Come at me."
The remaining nineteen scouts stood frozen in the mud, staring back and forth between their silver-haired Demi-Human hero lying unconscious in the dirt and the slender silver-streaked woman standing before them.
Her single shortsword was raised vertically before her face, her dark eyes completely lacking any sort of fear, and her pitch-black shadow mana was already creeping across the ground like living serpents.
Uncertainty flashed through the scouts’ eyes.
They looked over their shoulders toward the high iron ramp of the mobile fortress, waiting for a signal.
Up on the observation deck, Lord Sky adjusted his silver-and-black alloy mask, a sharp excited glint shining in his eyes.
He raised his right hand and gestured forward without a second of hesitation.
"Go!" Sky commanded, his voice broadcasting clearly through his mask’s microphone to the clearing and his stream drones. "Subdue her! Don’t let a single scout hold back!"
"AAAAAHHHH!"
"TAKE HER DOWN!"
"FOR THE UNMOVABLE WALL!"
The nineteen scouts snapped out of their trance, letting out fierce battle-hungry roars as they unleashed their various elemental manas.
Swords, spears, curved sabers, and iron axes were drawn simultaneously as the group surged forward across the mud clearing like a tidal wave.
Tasmin didn’t move an inch from her stance as she simply reached down to her left hip with her free hand, drawing her second shortsword from its leather sheath.
SLIDE... CLANG!
Instead of gripping the leather hilt directly, Tasmin caught the thick silver links of the Eclipse-Thread Chain attached to the pommel and she spun the secondary shortsword around her wrist with the heavy steel blade blurring through the air in a whistling circle.
SWISH! SWISH! SWISH!
"You wish to test the Blessed Land?" Tasmin spoke softly, her voice chilling the warm air. "Then come."
STOMP!
Tasmin drove her right boot violently into the dark soil.
BOOM!
A massive wave-like explosion of thick, jet-black shadow mana erupted out of the earth beneath her feet.
The dark shadow energy spread across the entire mud clearing in a fraction of a millisecond, completely engulfing all nineteen advancing scouts in a dense, blinding dome of pitch-black darkness.
Inside the shadow dome, vision was reduced to absolute zero and the scouts panicked instantly with their battle cries turning into startled shrieks as their elemental lights were smothered by her shadow authority.
"WHAT THE—?!"
"I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING!"
"WHERE IS SHE?!"
"WATCH YOUR BACKS!"
Up above the shadow dome, Lord Sky’s floating camera drones hovered in mid-air, capturing the terrifying sight of a giant writhing sphere of pure darkness pulsating in the middle of the clearing.
His stream HUD flared red with thousands of comments pouring in at light speed.
[@ShadowFanatic: HOLY SHIT SHADOW DOMAIN EXPANSION?!]
[@GamerGod99: IS SHE A HIGH-TIER SHADOW WEAVER?!]
[@PVP_Legend: THOSE SCOUTS ARE GETTING COOKED!]
[@NoobMaster69: SKY YOUR SCOUTS ARE DONE FOR!]
[@SovereignWatcher: That might be S-Rank shadow control! Look at the density!]
[@ValoriaFan: She wrapped 19 people in 1 second?!]
[@TacticalNuke: RIP scouts lmao]
Inside the black dome, the slaughter began... not of lives, but of pure combat spirit.
Tasmin moved through the darkness like a ghost.
She activated [Shadow-Submersion Drift] with her physical body merging completely into the floor before re-emerging directly behind the first two scouts.
WHOOSH!
THWACK! THWACK!
Using the flat side of her heavy shortsword blades, Tasmin struck both scouts cleanly across the back of their necks with terrifying force.
CRACK! CRACK!
Both men went limp instantly with their eyes rolling up into their heads as they collapsed face-first into the mud without ever knowing where the blow came from.
"BEHIND US!" a spearman screamed, thrusting his iron spear blindly into the shadows.
CLANG!
Tasmin caught the steel spearhead cleanly between her bare fingers with her strength locking the weapon in place.
She yanked the spear forward, pulling the scout off balance, and drove her elbow straight into his sternum.
BANG!
THUD!
The scout let out a strangled gasp of air as his armor cracked, his body flying backward into three of his comrades, knocking them all down into a tangled heap in the dirt.
Tasmin didn’t stop for a single breath as she whirled her chained shortsword through the dark air.
"Come on, don’t be a bitch!"